First Half of Final Fantasy XV Is Open-World, Second Half Is “Story-Driven and Progresses Linearly”

August 26, 2016
Written by Jason Dunning

Final Fantasy XV’s story will take about 50 hours to beat and, as Game Director Hajime Tabata revealed to Famitsu, the game is split into two parts – an open-world first half and a story-driven, linear second half – in order to keep the game from getting tiring:

For Final Fantasy XV, we’ve put in both open world parts and linear parts to make up the game’s full structure. The first half is a continuous open world, but the second half is story-driven and progresses linearly. By doing this, the entire game is tightened so that the open world doesn’t get tiring, and so that you can also get a taste of traditional Final Fantasy progression. If we assume you’ll play only the main routes of the first and second halves, it’ll take about 40 to 50 hours.

If you plan on doing everything in Final Fantasy XV’s 16 chapters, it could take around 200 hours.

To extend your time with Final Fantasy XV, there’s the Season Pass, which includes access to six post-launch DLC packs. That might not be the end of the DLC for FFXV though, with Tabata saying “those are what we’ve announced today, something we’ve decided that we’ll certainly do.”

If Square Enix does decide to do more DLC, it probably won’t be included in the Season Pass. “If we decide to make downloadable content outside of the Season Pass we’re currently selling, then that will be the case,” Tabata said. “Although there’s a lot right now that isn’t clear.”

In terms of smaller DLC, Square Enix plans on adding costumes and increasing the cooking repertoire, but right now they’re just focused on polishing the main game ahead of launch on November 29. “Once we can be finished with that, I think we can get up to speed on downloadable content and VR content,” he added.